Steps to success

February 10, 2012

Tamma Carleton '09

Oxford University

Coming from rural Elk, California, population 250, Tamma Carleton ’09 felt she should go to a big college. Lewis & Clark wasn’t even on her radar, but a recruitment letter promoting our cross country and track programs persuaded her to visit. “I had already checked out several large schools,” she says, “but as soon as I sat in on a class at Lewis & Clark, I knew: this is how I want to learn.”

Tamma enrolled at Lewis & Clark intending to study international affairs, but in her very first economics class, a second epiphany struck: “I suddenly realized, this is how I think,” she recalls. “Everything just clicked.”

Those pivotal moments were just the first steps on an exciting new journey. In 2011, while working as an economic analyst at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., Tamma learned that she had won the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. With the award, she’s now working on a master’s degree in economics at Oxford University.